


Carry Us Through Dreams

by garrisonbabe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, car crashes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:30:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garrisonbabe/pseuds/garrisonbabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mr. Winchester, you’re Mr. Novak’s emergency contact. There’s been an accident."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry Us Through Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't beta'd and for that I am sorry. Hope you enjoy.

Dean woke up Saturday morning and looked at the side of his bed, the empty one that had been empty for four months. Every morning he told himself he wouldn’t cry and somehow every morning he knew he was lying before he even said it. At least he didn’t sob anymore. Somehow people would see the puffy eyes and think it was okay to be all sympathetic and soft on him. All it did was piss him off. It set off an explosion of rage he couldn’t contain and didn’t want to try.

_I run to the middle of the explosion because you need to let it out quickly, you need to blow up so you don’t say things you don’t mean and hurt people._

He sat up slowly, ignoring how cold everything was, and went to get dressed and showered for the day. Just like every other day since the accident he didn’t bother looking at the shampoo that wasn’t his and wasn’t depleting. It smelled like cinnamon and vanilla and he missed it so much that he didn’t even go near the bakery in the grocery store. Sam was the one who bought him bread, didn’t say anything, just smiled and went off whenever Dean mentioned he needed it.

Then there was the body wash that somehow managed to smell like a field after a thunder storm, flowers and all.

_Why d’you use that stuff? Smells like flowers._   
  
_You’ve never complained before. I could stop using it if you wanted me to._   
  
_What? No! I… nevermind._

He got dressed in sweat pants and a t-shirt, slipped on a pair of running shoes with comfortable socks and ignored the fact that it was only thirty degrees out when he went to the car. The Impala had just finished being a temperamental bitch and let him rebuild her. Seemed she felt like something was missing, too. Sometimes she’d stall and Dean would just scream at her. Not even words, he’d just scream and punch the steering wheel and in the end she always started. She didn’t stall this time, though. Actually, she never stalled if Dean was driving to the hospital. Yeah, something was missing and even his baby could feel it.

The drive was quiet, he couldn’t bother with music. All it did was remind him of who wasn’t in the car. In the passenger seat he had his homework for his senior engineering class and a few novels to read so he could pass the time in the too-quiet room. If somebody had told him at sixteen that he’d be twenty-two and just a month away from graduating college at the top of his class in engineering, he’d have laughed at them. Well, all but the actual person who told him.

After the accident he didn’t stop on his classes. He loved the distraction. Loved the way he could take things apart and rebuild them to make them better. He could finally control something. Unlike the fucking semi-truck that barreled through a red light on a highway and sent his life careening down the road when he wasn’t even in the car.

_Mr. Winchester, you’re Mr. Novak’s emergency contact. There’s been an accident._

His heart stopped that day and it still hasn’t started up again.

_A semi ran a red light when he was turning. He’s in intensive care, we’re not sure if he’ll make it._

He knew Cas would. Cas never gave up so easily. It was Cas never giving up that kept Dean alive and kept Dean from failing high school. The man he’d known since he was six and had been dating since he was seventeen, that man wouldn’t give up for anyone or anything. Death could come back in six decades, he wouldn’t take Cas.

_He’s stable, but he’s in a coma and with the damage to his spinal cord it’s likely he’ll never walk again, Dean. Castiel will be confined to a wheel chair if he wakes up._

_Just means I get to carry him home, then._

Dean grabbed his bag full of books and life and walked into the hospital. The nurses knew who he was and why he was there. Hell, even some of the other patients were getting to know. In the elevator was a young girl with a teddy bear and no legs. They ended at the knee and kept her in a wheel chair with a blue seat, because blue can be girly too, and a butterfly sticker on the back.

“Hi, Dean!” She smiled up at him, her eyes were light and she was the only thing to make Dean genuinely smile.

“Hey, Claire, how’s it going?” He rolled his shoulder to keep his bag from slipping and kept looking at the blonde child next to him that had no legs and no unhappiness.

“S’good! The doctors say I’ll be going home soon. I’m really excited! I miss my puppy. How’s Cas?” She knew about everything that happened to Cas. Months ago it would seem odd to Dean that a ten year old would be his confidant, but now it didn’t seem so strange.

“He’s pretty much the same.” He smiled sadly and she beamed right back up at him, making him tilt his head—a form of expression that he’d just call his own because it hurt to admit that it wasn’t—and eye her curiously.

“Dean, can I tell you a secret?” Claire was sweet and optimistic and she told Dean that Cas would wake up, she told him every day and in his heart he knew it too. He nodded to her and when the elevator opened he knelt down with his ear close to her face so she could whisper to him. “I had a dream last night that I met an angel with Cas’ name and he said Cas would wake up and that he’d need you. He said it would happen in a few days, when you were talking to him about poetry.”

Dean sat back and eyed her cautiously for a moment. She’d never gotten that in detail about something before. His eyes started to water at the thought of Cas waking, Dean talking about poetry was likely something that’d be shocking enough to do it. A smile forced its way to his mouth and he tried not to cry again. Claire hugged him and hugged her back. “Thanks, kiddo. You keep being sweet when you get out, you hear me? The world needs a girl like you.”

She pulled back and began wheeling off before she turned around. “And the world needs guys like you and Cas, too!”

Dean rubbed his face and went to Cas’ room, he was still hooked up to the machines, his eyes were still closed and he was still off in some other place while he slept. They didn’t need a respirator, thank whoever for that. Cas was also stubborn enough that a feeding tube was too much hassle. He gagged on it and they ended up settling for spooning him stuff that was the consistency of apple sauce. Dean sat down next to him, held his hand for almost three hours and told him about Claire’s dream. His homework was easy enough and when he was done he read to Castiel until dinner and when he left that evening he promised he’d bring him real food when he woke up. He’d make the burgers Cas loved and waffle fries.

He placed a kiss to Castiel’s forehead and breathed in the scent of his skin. It didn’t smell like a field with flowers after a storm, it smelled like a hospital. Somehow the storm still lingered, even lying in a hospital bed and gown for four months couldn’t keep the chaos and electricity of this man from showing itself.

The Impala wouldn’t start in the parking lot. It took him half an hour of begging for her finally turn over and come to life and even as she did she sounded depressed.

“Don’t I know the feeling, Baby?” Even if he didn’t tell anyone but the car, Claire and Castiel, Dean did know what he was feeling and he did acknowledge it. He just didn’t need to talk about it like Sam did or wanted him to. Hell, even Jess knew better than to pester him. She’d just hand him Deanna and he’d sing to his niece and bounce her on his knee.

She was five years old and she knew what was happening with Cas more than others gave her credit for. He walked into his house, empty and quiet. There was no sizzling of dinner or soft roar of a tv, there was nothing and in that moment his house was like a big metaphor for his life. Everything was still in place, but nothing was happening. The phone rang and made him jump. He always hoped it was the hospital saying Cas woke up. But he always knew it wasn’t.

“Hey, Sammy, what’s up?” Dean set his bag in the couch and went to the cabinet for the bottle of whiskey he kept permanently stocked. It seemed to need restocked more often without Cas around, though.

“Little miss princess wanted to tell you something. She wouldn’t tell me what but she said it was very important and you needed to hear it.” Sam sounded exasperated but fond and Dean could hear his little female clone on the ground below her Daddy’s feet, making little noises that said _gimme, need it, hey! I **am** talking to you down here!_ that she most certainly did not learn from Dean.

He heard the phone being handed over and an exaggerated sigh of finally from the world’s most threatening toddler. “Okay, Uncle Dean, you gossa listen, kay?”

Dean chuckled and downed his first glass of many to come. “Okay, Sweetie, what’s up?”

“I had the coolest Dream last night!” Dean paused, no, couldn’t be the same one as – “An angel with Uncle Cas’ name told me he’d wake up soon. He said you’d be telling him about something he liked and he’d wake up.”

Dean nearly dropped his glass and his chest felt like it was clenching. This was too damned much. There was no fucking way, none whatsoever. He cleared his throat and forced himself to breathe. “That’s a pretty cool dream, Sweetie. Keep it a secret for me?” He heard the enthusiastic _mhmm!_ that only a small child could muster and the phone was given back to Sam as he came into the room again. Dean pulled the phone away from his ear a bit to hunch over the counter and not promptly vomit.

“Hey, man, what’d she want to tell you?” Dean laughed dryly and straightened.

“She told me she saw you wearing pink polka dot boxers today.” He laughed and Sam groaned. They exchanged goodbyes and hung up. The moment he ended the call he fell to the ground, curling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms over himself. Now that he was alone, he sobbed and cursed and screamed. He stood up and punched the wall, putting another hole in it that he’d have to fill in.

_One of these days you’ll break your hand, Dean._

“My life’s already broken, what’s it matter?” He looked at his knuckles, the skin peeled back and bleeding slightly.

_You know that isn’t true, Dean. You rebuilt Baby, you can rebuild this._

“There isn’t a fucking point if you’re not here!” He kicked the wall and wished he would have hurt himself. But that was the kind of thinking he couldn’t have, he needed to be alive when Cas woke up. He needed to be there to help him. He needed to carry him home.

Dean didn’t bother putting the whiskey back or even undressing. He fell into bed and stared at the ceiling until he was unconscious.

..

Dean stands in front of his father’s grave, he’s ten, Sammy’s five and their mother’s been dead for five years already. John died while undercover. They were staying at Bobby’s, like they always did, and when they got the call Bobby had grown pale. Dean had known what it meant without even asking. Sammy just got real quiet; like he didn’t know what it even meant that their dad was dead. It wouldn’t be until Dean was twelve he’d realize their dad was dead the same night their mom was, even if his body was still moving and it wouldn’t be until he was twenty-two that he’d wished he couldn’t empathize.

But for now, this night, Dean is ten and he stands in front of his father’s grave as the rain pours down. His best friend stands next to him, holding his hand because he’s the only one other than Sam that gets away with it. They started with their hands clasped, but Dean laced their fingers because he needed something to help steady him and Cas was always there.

When everything was done they stood around the newly filled grave with the adults looking at him and Sam miserably and Cas spoke up. “Hey, Dean, you’re Daddy died saving people. He was a cop, he fought for the good guys.” Dean just looked at him curiously, head already tilting like Cas’ did and the other adults started to look a little horrified. Dean had a temper, just like John. “That means he’s in Heaven with your Momma.” Ellen began sobbing and even Bobby started to cry. Dean just smiled and hugged Castiel, his arms as tight as he could manage.

“You’re my best friend, Cas.” The other boy hugged him too.

Dean wouldn’t realize until he was sixteen that was when he started to fall in love with his best friend, even if he didn’t know what love like that meant as a child.

.

Everything shifts and Dean is sixteen and is screaming at someone. He barely remembers who or why. He remembers everyone backing away to give him space. Everyone except his best friend, who pushes his chest and glares at him with enough heat that it even gives Dean pause. Those blue eyes that were too damned dark to be real but just vibrant enough that you’d never question it aloud for fear they’d change. He missed them most of all. A scratchy voice flies across his ears. When Cas was really little he’d had laryngitis and it scarred his vocal cords. Everyone was told to stay a safe distance away, but Dean sat right next to him and wouldn’t leave. They told him he’d get sick, but every time he looked at Cas when they tried to move him Cas panicked so he screamed and kicked until they let him stay.

He never did get sick.

The anger turns to rage and he screams at Cas, not even words, just screams. But he can feel it getting better. Everyone worries he’ll punch Cas one day and hurt him. After all, Dean played a lot of sports, some for school, and he worked out almost religiously. He and Cas both knew a fighting style or two and Dean did have the potential to hurt him.

What they never knew is that one day he did shove Cas back, not punch or smack, he hadn’t even injured the other boy. They were alone and Dean pushed him back and he’d landed on the ground. He’d looked even angrier and above all he looked hurt. Dean’s anger broke and he fell onto his knees, crying.

After that Cas was the only one safe from his rage.

.

Everything shifts again and Dean is sitting in the living room, on his cell phone.

“I’ll be home in about twenty minutes; Baby was giving me trouble, like she didn’t want me to leave the parking lot or something.” Cas chuckles and Dean chuckles with him. Now he wished he’d have told him to listen to the bitch.

“It’s fine, Handsome. See you in a bit, then. I love you.” Dean smiles and hangs up after Cas replies.

An hour later he's pacing and his phone rings again. It isn’t Cas.

..

His routine repeats when he wakes and it goes on like that until Thursday. Baby is almost too damned eager to start and the radio comes on when it hadn’t been on before. The song is one he knows well, it was one Cas convinced him to like. It made him sink into his seat and sit like he was a corpse, unmoving and uncaring.

He couldn’t bring himself to turn it off. Ever since he’d been young he thought that when he found the love of his life their song would be some old iconic rock song. Then the love of his life was Cas and it was a soft song from a modern band from a different country.

It met his ears both as a friend and an enemy, the soft male voice making him want to box his own ears and yet keep listening.

_Back row to the left_   
_A little to the side_   
_Slightly out of place_   
_Look beyond the light_   
_Where you'd least expect_   
_There's someone special_

He clicked the radio off before the chorus turned into a verse about dancing in the rain, something he would shamelessly admit he’d done with Cas.

Dean had kissed Cas in high school the day after they started dating. People stared, booed and some of the other jocks stopped talking to him. Cas was worried he was ruining Dean’s school life or that somehow Dean would get embarrassed. _I could never be ashamed of you. Let them think what they want, doesn’t matter._ Castiel had been jumped the next week and the following day three members of the football team showed up covered in bruises and stitches. One of them didn’t show up until he was out of the hospital a week later.

No one ever touched Cas after that. No one but Dean and he’d been happy to keep it that way. As baby purred beneath him his mind betrayed him. It showed him what happened after he and Cas had been dating for three months. Dean had pushed himself into the back seat as far as the material would let him and Cas was between his legs, back to chest. Those runner’s legs and thighs were spread wide, the soft black hair tickled his ear while he touched the man he loved. Cas had been a virgin and Dean was his first, his only.

When Cas had finished he’d kissed Dean’s ear and whispered _I love you, Dean_ for the first time. Nowhere near the last.

The only thing Dean didn’t regret was that his last words to Cas had been to tell him he loved him.

The drive was quick, Baby was practically driving herself and Dean was speeding no matter how hard he tried not to. No one pulled him over, so that was good. Claire had been released on Tuesday and she told him to be hopeful. He tried his best. Dean still hadn’t told Sam about the dream Claire shared with his daughter. Truthfully he wasn’t sure what the fuck to think about it.

He sat down and groaned, his bag thumping on the ground. “You know, Cas, Baby was being a fucking speed demon this morning. It was like she just wanted to get to the hurry up and wait of being here. Got no clue why.” There was stubble on Cas’ jaw and Dean knew he’d have to shave him again within a day or so.

Four hours passed, Dean finished his math homework and his engineering project. All he had left was English. His student advisor had looked at him like he was insane when he told her he hadn’t taken it yet. _You’re a senior, Dean_ she pouted. _I hate English, Tess. Cas, he fucking loves it, the nut_ he’d replied with a laugh.

“Man, I wish you were awake.” Dean’s English book was open and propped up on Cas’ thigh. He didn’t know what the hell MacLeish was talking about in this book. It was insane. _'Poetry and Experience'_ seemed more like a verbal acid trip in parts. “I remember you telling me you loved MacLeish. You would, man. I can’t even begin to understand what old Archie’s saying.” Dean’s eyes were plastered to his book, trying to pick away at the words and syllables. “This fucking professor is nuts if she thinks I’ll be able to get this.”

“Which one?” Dean shot straight up, looking at Cas as his eyes opened slowly. Not a hallucination then. Dean threw his book to the other side of the room and sat down on the mattress at Cas’ hip. A smile was pulling on chapped lips and it was entirely reflected in those deep, aged eyes. The raspy, gravelly voice he’d missed so much spoke again and tears were already rolling down Dean’s face but they became even thicker and his head went to Cas’ chest as he spoke, listening to the way it shook his chest. “MacLeish isn’t the worst, you know.”

Fingers began to play at the nape of his neck and in his hair. Dean’s arms wrapped around Cas’ body and he could vaguely hear that nurses were on their way. “I swear to God if this is a dream I will fucking kill myself when I wake up.”

He heard a soft exhalation above his head, the same one he’d heard for years. It spoke of amusement and patience and love. “I had a dream a little bit ago, Dean. The one where we were at your father’s funeral and you hugged me.”

Dean pulled him tighter and sobbed into his chest. “I fucking missed you so much.”

Nurses were in the room trying to pull him away and Cas was trying to tell them to back off for a minute. He was warning them Dean would get violent if they tried to stop him, said he’d get violent too despite being in a hospital bed. Asleep for four months, but didn’t miss a beat. Dean began to rise slowly and let him go so the nurses and doctors could take a look at him. “I love you.” They said it at the same time and laughed, both of them now crying. Dean excused himself and called Cas’ family.

..

Cas didn’t remember the accident and it was Dean who told him, it was also Dean who told him about his legs. Castiel hadn’t even noticed at first, he thought maybe they were just asleep from lying in bed so much.

Dean had held him while he sobbed. He’d picked him up, crawled in bed and ignored the dirty looks of the hospital staff. If they really wanted to fuck with him they could try. Castiel was situated in his lap, clutching to his shirt while Dean stroked his sides.

“How long was I out, Dean?” Came out between the tears and the sniffs.

“Four months.” A new set of even harsher coughs and sputtering choked him. Dean understood this, he couldn’t fix it, but he could hold Cas together. He was numb to any of the pain of what he’d been through. Cas was awake and later he’d probably feel pain because Cas hurt and he couldn’t fix it. He’d berate himself a bit and hate himself because he couldn’t help Cas and make it better. Right now, though, Castiel was awake enough to cry in the first place and that was enough.

Castiel fell asleep in Dean’s lap and he just held him, trying not to panic that he might not wake up again. Most of Cas’ family was barreling toward them, including his cousins Balthazar and Michael who lived overseas and travelled so much it made Dean’s head spin.

At around three a.m. Castiel woke up again and Dean tried not to show the extent of his relief at the second waking. “It’s like a nuke went off in the middle of my life.”

Dean smiled faintly and remembered Castiel’s words about going to the center of Dean’s explosions. “Then consider me happy to sit at ground zero with you.” Castiel laughed and clutched to him more tightly. “Can I tell you something, Cas?” Cas nodded and pulled himself up further into Dean’s lap. Dean couldn’t resist the temptation as his face got nearer. He kissed him, one hand on his jaw while his other arm wrapped around his back. Castiel kissed back, seeming to miss it just as much as Dean. They broke the kiss, both of them crying and laughing and clinging even more tightly to each other than before. “They told me you wouldn’t get your legs back when you came out of the ICU. I know you, and I heard some of the things you were saying when you were crying. I’m not going anywhere.” His eyes stayed fastened to Cas’, making sure the other man understood perfectly what Dean was trying to say. “You never left me when I was low, and God help me, Cas…” Dean’s voice broke and he took a deep, shuddery breath to steady himself. “I will never leave you, either. You know that. They told me you wouldn’t be able to walk home and I said all it meant was that I’d carry you and I fucking meant it. You hear me?”

Castiel nodded and kissed him again, desperate for the contact and the reassurance.

..

Two weeks later Castiel was let out of the hospital, he was in perfect health and Dean kept his promise. He drove him home in the Impala and carried him through their front door. Every time Castiel got low Dean carried him back up and even without legs Castiel returned the favor.

Their lives ended decades later in a car crash on a rainy afternoon and as their souls stood outside the mangled hunk of metal and human they looked at each other, both standing on their own two feet and appearing as they did when they went off to college together. They took each other’s hands and carried themselves to a Heaven they'd make together.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a spinoff of my HS AU Destiel. It's odd to have an AU of an AU.. O.O  
> Obviously I don't own anything or any characters here. Just felt like giving you some emotional baggage with my favorite ship.  
> Before I forget! The song mentioned is Someone Special by Poets of the Fall


End file.
